Carlos Sainz was delighted by the pace he had in his "most complete" race so far for Ferrari at the Styrian Grand Prix.
With the Scuderia focused on solving the front tyre wear issues that ruined their race at Circuit Paul Ricard a week earlier, Sainz was able to run a very long first stint and essentially overcut most of the midfield pack.
"I knew that the Mediums could do those 40 laps, I just needed to make sure I kept the tyres healthy for when I got clean air,” the Spaniard reflected.
“But to be honest, what I’m most happy about is the pace once clean air appeared. I think we managed to go down one second in lap time, we started to lap at a very competitive pace, even more competitive than McLaren and very close to the leaders."
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Indeed, once in P6, Sainz's bid to chase Lando Norris for P5 was actually blighted by following Lewis Hamilton before eventually unlapping himself against the Mercedes.
“The car has been amazing, and probably, in general, just analysing it quickly, probably my most complete race since [joining] Ferrari," he continued.
“Just the whole pace management, tyre management, pace overall, it’s been one of the best overall, helped by the car performing well in the race. [I’m] quite proud about that one.
“It was the first race since I’ve been at Ferrari in which everything went exactly according to plan, of course, the next step is to qualify as well as we did in France, then perform in the race the way we did in the Styrian Grand Prix."
Looking ahead to this weekend, Sainz hopes to work on that single lap pace that alluded him a week ago, but notes the key change for the Austrian GP may hamper the Italian team.
“We have softer compound tyres, which we will need to understand, cooler temperatures as well as a prototype tyre to evaluate before it is introduced starting from Silverstone," he listed.
“So, we will have quite a busy program in practice, which will also include preparing better for Saturday, at least in my case. I know I can do better than 12th place on the grid.
"At the moment, the softer we go the more exposed we are with our front tyre troubles that we normally have," he added. "We know we have this issue at pretty much every circuit.
“But I think we have approached the weekend in the right way and we come here with plenty of data that should help us do better in qualifying, however, I don’t think it makes sense to compromise too much on race pace to gain one place on the grid on Saturday. It will be a busy and interesting weekend."
